Senate Democrats early this morning approved their $3.5 trillion budget resolution for expanding the social safety net. Twitter followed along as senators debated the measure and Republicans tried to weaken it and add poison-pill amendments (CNN):
The vote was 50-49 and the measure passed after a lengthy series of amendment votes known as a “vote-a-rama,” which started on Tuesday afternoon and went until just before 4 a.m. ET.
The Democratic-controlled House must next take up and pass the budget resolution. Majority Leader Steny Hoyer sent a letter to colleagues Tuesday saying the chamber planned to return the week of August 23 to consider the budget resolution.
Passage of the budget resolution by both chambers will unlock the ability for Democrats to use a process known as budget reconciliation to pass legislation on a party-line vote addressing health care, aid for families, the climate crisis and more. Tuesday’s vote is only the first step in what will be a lengthy process. The resolution needs to be approved by both chambers before Democrats can move on to the reconciliation plan, which still must be drafted and will be considered in the fall.
The blueprint will need fleshing out over weeks before the final appropriations bill is ready for a vote in both House and Senate. And in a 50-50 Senate, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will have to contend with keeping moderate Democrats Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia from blowing up the bill from the inside.
According to a summary of the resolution, Democrats plan to invest in four major categories: families, climate, health care, and infrastructure and jobs. Among other provisions, the measure seeks to establish universal pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds and make community college tuition-free for two years. It calls for the establishment of a Civilian Climate Corps, adds new dental, vision and hearing benefits to Medicare coverage and would make a “historic level” of investment in affordable housing. The resolution also aims to lower the cost of prescription drugs and provide “green cards to millions of immigrant workers and families.”
Congressional Democrats are pursuing a dual-track strategy to passing major infrastructure and economic legislation and have worked to advance both bipartisan and partisan packages. Earlier on Tuesday, the Senate passed a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill following painstaking and drawn-out negotiations between a bipartisan group of senators and the Biden administration. The push to pass a separate legislative package on a party-line vote will allow Democrats to enact key Biden priorities left out of the bipartisan deal that go beyond the traditional definition of physical infrastructure.
Of course, he did
This from those wee hours via Axios:
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) blocked Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) attempt to pass Democrats’ signature voting rights package — a revised version of the “For the People Act” — in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Why it matters: The sweeping federal elections overhaul is intended to combat a wave of new voting restrictions in Republican-led states, but has no chance of winning the 60 votes needed to overcome the filibuster.
- Schumer attempted to pass the bill via unanimous consent, which requires just one senator to object in order to kill the vote.
- Senate Republicans filibustered the “For the People Act” for the first time in June. Moderate Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has also voiced his opposition to some elements of the package.
Let my people go, said Moses.
Let our people vote, said Democrats.
Hell no, said Republicans.
“This bill would constitute a federal government takeover of elections. It would constitute a massive power grab by Democrats,” said Texas Republican, Sen.Ted Cruz.
“Here in the dead of night, they also want to start tearing up the ground rules of our democracy and writing new ones of course on a purely partisan basis,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch “The Grim Reaper” McConnell of Kentucky.
Meanwhile in the light of day, 17 Republican-controlled states and Nevada have enacted at least 30 new laws this year to make it harder for Americans to vote, some more eggregious than others, the Brennan Center assesses.
Republicans are all about freedom — the freedom to refuse vaccination and masks, the freedom to irresponsibly spread the deadly Covid virus to the nation’s children, the freedom to dispense medical advice on Facebook, and, of course, to carry firearms everywhere (unless you are Black). Until it comes to the freedom for non-Republican-voting Americans to participate in the democratic process. Then conservative America is all paranoia and white knuckles if not nooses and insurrection.
